Amazon sells 100,000 Blu-ray standalones during holidays

Amazon, notorious for hyping sales numbers but not really giving hard facts, has said this week that during the holiday season it sold enough Blu-ray players that if lined up side-by-side, it would measure over 27 miles.

VideoBusiness says the average width of a BD player is just about 17-inches. Doing some quick math (miles to inches then divided again by 17) we get that total sales were 100,630.

Obviously the numbers are speculation for now, but 100k units sold for the holiday season would be a massive number for just one retailer. NPD Group says overall units sales jumped 50 percent year-on-year, with profits growing 5 percent, mainly because BD players had prices slashed so low.

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 30 Dec 2009 15:01

Advertisement - News comments available below the ad

10 comments

cyprusrom

Maybe Amazon calculated using the length of the players)))

30.12.2009 17:04 #1

ydkjman

What about that $78 Blu-ray player Wal-mart had on sale ? Man with 3549 Wal-mart stores out there selling these players and if they sold at the least 50 each store your looking at around 177,000.

30.12.2009 17:16 #2

jookycola

Personally if you don't have a PS3 you have a shit BD player. I've had 3 stand alone units all 3 took forever to load a movie. 1 constantly needed me to upload firmware updates. The other 2 were high end and still took forever to load and was a crap shot whether or not the disc would actually load and play the movie. The technology is too new, and not really regulated very well.

However i'd take those same BD movie discs to my game room and toss them in the PS3 and they loaded up and popped up immediately and played every time. Not sure what Sony did right with the PS3 that the others can't do right. But it must just be stand alone technology because even my Sony stand alone BD player was sketchy.

30.12.2009 19:09 #3

cyprusrom

My buddy's BD drive just quit in his PS3, after about 1 year.It reads DVDs still, but no BDs. Over $100 to have it shipped to Sony and replaced.
To say that one certain player is crap based on a sample of 1,that has no validity.

30.12.2009 19:22 #4

jookycola

How about 3?
from different brands.
try reading next time.

30.12.2009 20:54 #5

cyprusrom

Sorry buddy, you don't seem to know much about statistics. One player from one brand still makes one.

30.12.2009 20:59 #6

KillerBug

Most standalone BD players have the same issue: Firmware. Firmware will need to be updated over and over again...and most will not get firmware updates after a year or two. The PS3 is the best bluray player around IMHO, but it does cost a lot more than those $78 units!

As for amazon's math: I am sure they figured the size (including box) of the largest bluray player ever made, then multiplied it by however many bluray players and PS3s they sold total over the course of 3 months or so.

30.12.2009 23:35 #7

sam1dog

The ps3 laser on my PS3 went out as well a just bit over the warranty period. Could play demo's but no movies or games. I read on the internet that it's quite common for the PS3 drive to fail. Cost $120 to fix locally. Even a person on Craigslist advertising to fix them since so common. Sony wanted even more plus 1 month turn around time. Went with a standalone player from Panasonic and had not complaints yet.

31.12.2009 12:59 #8

ZippyDSM

I wonder if sony is heading for another DRE fiasco, I get that feeling but not seen enough in the rumor mill like I did with the 360 stuff.

Whats the cheapest standalone BR recorder? I need something that will upconvert to 1080 :P

1.1.2010 08:38 #9

SuckRaven

As far as the performance of standalone Blu-ray players goes, the Pioneer ELITE BDP-09FD blows the pants off of the PS3 as far as movie playback, and even load times. Of course, you don't get gaming, or all the other awesome media capabilities of the PS3. But this is one hell of a BD player:

http://pioneerelectronics.com/PUSA/Produ...i.BDP-09FD.Kuro

3.1.2010 14:07 #10

AfterDawn: News